Tag Archives: federal budget deficit

economic news

Socialism then; now it’s, um, acceptable

Yesterday’s socialist initiative has become an act of economic genius … in the eyes of many political observers.

I am confused.

Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009 and went to work immediately to look for ways to rescue an economy in free fall. We were shedding tens of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment was climbing toward 10 percent. The new president had to act quickly.

He and Congress managed to cobble together a massive bailout program. It helped shore up banks, the auto industry, the airline industry. Congressional Republicans and their friends in conservative media called it the most dangerous lurch toward socialism in American history.

The world was ending. Earth was going to spin off its axis. The sky would fall on us. The world as we knew it would end.

None of that happened. President Obama acted decisively, as did Congress. The loans sent out were paid back with interest. Job growth mounted. Unemployment fell. We began to pay down the federal budget deficit. The economy recovered.

Barack Obama left office in 2017. Donald Trump took over. Trump inherited a robust economy. Job growth continued. Joblessness fell to historic lows.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic that hit early this year.

People started getting infected with a disease. Then citizens began to die. Businesses shut down. Workers got furloughed. Cities, counties and states issued stay at home orders. Our streets fell silent.

The government then had to cobble together another stimulus package. This one totaled $2.2 trillion. The checks are in the mail. Billions went to businesses.

Where, I have to ask, are the accusations of a socialist initiative? Where is the righteous indignation and anger among conservatives that the government is grabbing private industry by the throat?

Remember that this initiative came from a Republican president, was approved by a GOP-run Senate as well as by a Democrat-run House. Some Democrats yammered that the bailout was too friendly to big business and doesn’t do enough for working families. However, it sailed through Congress with a bipartisan approval.

Times have changed, yes? Actually, not as much as some would have us believe. The opposition party in 2009 comprised a lot of fear-mongering demagogues. Today’s opposition resists on vastly different grounds but in the end it signed on to do the right thing.

Very strange.

national news

What about the deficit and the national debt?

trump

Hey, wait a second! Didn’t Republicans around the country gripe their voices hoarse about the size of the federal budget deficit and the debt that President Obama was running up?

Didn’t they proclaim that the world would come crashing down around us all if we didn’t get a handle on the debt?

That was before Donald J. Trump got elected president this past week, apparently.

Now it looks as though we’re about to blow the deficit apart and run up even more debt, now that the GOP is in control of the White House and Capitol Hill.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/deficit-donald-trump-republicans-231372?cmpid=sf

Trump wants to enact a massive infrastructure spending bill — while cutting taxes.

Let me see if I can figure this out. You spend billions of dollars, cut revenue to pay for it and then you watch the debt pile up and, oh yes, run up annual budget deficits that under Obama’s watch had been cut by two-thirds.

As Politico reports: “’There is now a real risk that we will see an onslaught of deficit-financed goodies — tax cuts, infrastructure spending, more on defense — all in the name of stimulus, but which in reality will massively balloon the debt,’ said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.”

I guess the GOP is going to return to the refrain that came from former Vice President Dick Cheney, who once declared (in)famously that “deficits don’t matter.”

Well, they do matter, Mr. Vice President. I consider myself a deficit hawk and it troubles me that the upcoming GOP spending spree well might threaten our economic recovery.

If we determine we need to repair our roads, bridges and airports, then we ought to dig a little deeper for the money to pay for them.

And to think the Republican Party once ran on the principle of fiscal responsibility.” What the new president is proposing — and what the GOP-run Congress is likely to approve — is anything but responsible.

national news, political news

Hillary says she’ll ask for Bill’s advice . . . duh?

hillary clinton

This might qualify is a dumb question.

It came Sunday night during the Democratic Party presidential debate and the questioner wondered whether Hillary Rodham Clinton would seek the advice of the 42nd president of the United States.

Wow! Do you think?

Why wouldn’t she? Bill Clinton left office in January 2001 with a 65 percent approval rating, and that was after he’d been impeached by the House of Representatives.

I totally understand that the former president had, um, some issues relating to a certain White House intern. I’m also aware of the official reason for the impeachment, that he committed perjury to a federal grand jury that asked him directly about the relationship.

But let’s get real here. Bill Clinton’s presidency was a rousing success. Was it totally free of tragedy? Of course not.

However, if the former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state is elected this November as the nation’s 45th president, she’d be stupid beyond belief not to enlist the advice of her husband.

Bill Clinton presided over eight years of superb economic growth in this country. The president — with support from Congress — managed to balance the federal budget and left office with the budget operating in the black for the first time since seemingly forever.

Is the former president’s advice worth obtaining?

Yeah, I kind of think so.